Leaves of Gold
by Lady Elina
Summary: A portrayal of the friendship and love between Aragorn son of Arathorn and Legolas Greenleaf, spanning from the year before the Council of Elrond to Aragorn's death in the Fourth Age. Warning: this story contains explicit slash. STORY COMPLETE.
1. A Wind There Came

Author's notes:

This story results from a self-challenge. It's my attempt at writing an Aragorn/Legolas romance that would (1) remain true to character and (2) have some plausibility in terms of book canon.

Please bear in mind that this is a SLASH story that features two male characters, i.e. Aragorn son of Arathorn and Legolas Greenleaf, in a romantic and sexual relationship. If the idea is not to your liking, you may not want to read this.

Thanks to my wonderful beta reader Lyllyn, whose insightful comments and suggestions helped me immensely. Likewise, thanks to Altera Eruantale and Milady Hawke who helped me when the story was at its earliest stage.

Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien (or his estate) owns Middle-earth and everything on it, New Line owns their interpretation of Tolkien's work. I own nothing but my imagination. No offence, no profit, just participation in a collective fantasy.

Rating for this chapter: PG-13.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Chapter 1:** A Wind There Came**

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

_My eyes rest upon your face wide-open;  
and they hold you gently, letting you go  
when something in the dark begins to move._

Rainer Maria Rilke, _To Say Before Going to Sleep  
_Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming__

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

¨

¨

**Mirkwood****, year 3017 of the Third Age - 18 months before the Council of Elrond and the forming of the Fellowship of the Ring**

¨

¨

He is leaving.

Any day, any moment the guest chair reserved for him in my father's hall will be empty, the surrounding Mirkwood will be quiet and the trees will not tell where he has gone. He always stays only for a short while, merely to go away again and to leave behind traces that I alone will see: a dark strand of hair under a tree where he slept, an overturned stone beside the brook that runs through the woods, a sprinkling of ash carried on the sole of his boot from a fire grown cold long ago.

He stirs in his sleep, a muscle below his eyebrow twitches, and he breathes a sigh into the cool night air. He is so tangible, so real, flesh and skin and garment, strong will under thin layers of sleep. Yet to my eyes he is like a ghost or a delusion, gone already.

My time on Middle-earth may be drawing to an end, but his was never more than an inaudible whisper in the ear of the eternal.

The knot of the night is unravelling into the morning. He lies beside the dying fire as I keep watch. His sleep is restless and wary, like my senses that filter noises, scents, movements. We are far enough from the borders of my father's realm to be in danger, should anything unexpected come our way. No matter how skilled wanderers of the wild, an Elf and a mortal are a poor match for any enemy that might have the advantage of surprise or superior numbers on their side.

I look at his face, his coarse, strong features that seem marked by some unspoken sorrow. His hair falls in dark tangles and a small vein pulses on his neck. A strange feeling of belonging flickers in my chest, but before I can catch it and look it in the eye, it hides from me.

What is in the beginning, when nothing has yet been said or done?

Is there an empty path that looks just like any other, yet is the only possible one? Is there a fate one can mould for oneself, or will stronger hands somewhere twine a fine thread of life into a larger tapestry? Is there a foreseen moment that has always existed, when blind stars collide and something upon earth is irrevocably changed - or is all but a coincidence, whim, lapse?

When he first came to Mirkwood years ago in search of the creature Gollum, I hardly noticed him. One day he was there, the next day he was gone, and I forgot. Or did not, because nothing is ever really forgotten, only buried under piles of lush, moist leaves and drops of water and songs and scents of starry nights. He was but another ranger, passing by on his endless journeys through the landscape that had become the image of his life - the cave that sheltered him from a storm, the river that cleansed the stains of battle off him, the barren plain that exposed him to any eyes that might be watching, friendly or hostile. He was no longer young but worn out by the strains of the road, another human whose life-span would come to an end when he had hardly learned how to speak and walk.

But I was reminded. He kept coming back. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim. The name of Elrond of Imladris was mentioned, and once even the Lady of the Golden Wood, who was hardly more than a tale from times long gone; it was said he was on the errands of the Wise. Estel was the Elvish name he wore like a cloak when he wished to remain unknown. He moved silently and skilfully like an Elf, he knew of woods and winds and earth. But he was no Elf. His name was Aragorn, and he was of Isildur's blood lineage. In his footsteps a stalk of grass fell upon another, small twigs were broken, leaves rustled in an unending whisper that rumoured of what was to come. I began to see in his comings and goings a faint outline, hardly visible patterns that were running towards a larger story.

And somehow, I became a part of that story. Once, twice, again I found myself keeping him company on his journeys through the darker parts of the forest, in Rhovanion, in the vales of the Great River. Not really knowing why he had chosen me or I him, somewhere along the way we grew towards each other, felt our way through the unknown and found a friendship.

Like a spider may patiently and imperceptibly spin glimmering fabrics amongst tree branches, years have woven a net of translucent strings between us. Delicate, yet firm and demanding strings that grow when you have lost track of the time you have spent with someone: tilt your head in a certain way and I know immediately where your mind is set today, move your hand and I look before I know I am looking, stir to take a step and I already follow.

Words are caught in that web until they grow dimmer, fewer, more fragile. Until the meaning of them starts to sink into oblivion.

Aragorn is awake. He sits up and gathers himself closer to the hot ashes where the fire has faded away. We are surrounded by the mystical twilight that wraps the world before every break of dawn and after every sunset, the blue and grey haze that floats in the air, the moment of transition when it is not yet day or night, and the universe seems to stand still.

Even before he speaks, I know he will be gone when the daylight breaks again into the forest.

His voice is low but firm.

"Legolas. When I pass through these woods again, it will only be to deliver Gollum for your father's guards to keep. I shall not linger."

"Why not take me with you?" I keep my voice steady, my face a mask of serenity. "Ours has been a good companionship in the past, even outside my father's realm."

His eyes reveal nothing, but his answer is folded in worry.

"Such dangers may lay ahead as I have not known before. I might have to go to the very confines of Mordor. And at my return a path awaits me I have long feared to walk."

I am feeling frustrated because I know so little of what he talks about.

"If dangers be fiercer, the better to take me with you! Two pairs of eyes are more alert, and two pairs of hands fight more forcefully, if perils should come our way."

The corners of his mouth tighten slightly and there is a tinge of impatience in his tone when he replies to me.

"Legolas, I must face this task alone. There are roads you can walk with me, but on some paths you cannot follow. No one can. And war is upon us. I am needed elsewhere."

A fluid realisation enters me.

"I may not see you again, then?"

"I know not." He looks at me thoughtfully, and this time I believe I see a glint of something new, unfamiliar in his gaze. "I see ahead of me but darkness, a grey fog which obscures all, leaving me to grope my way through."

He remains silent for a moment before continuing.

"Imladris awaits. My foster father knows the time is near, and he shall soon summon the peoples of Middle-earth to attend his Council. I wish to see you there, my friend, unless it is meant to be otherwise."

On impulse I embrace him. I think he is surprised, but does not push me away - quite the opposite. He holds me for a long time, his body firmly pressed against mine, his warmth radiating into me. When we finally part, he looks at me gravely. My voice is steadier than I am feeling inside as I speak.

"I shall walk and fight by your side just as willingly as I have accompanied you in times of peace, should ever the day come you need me."

His hand is still on my shoulder, and a smile brightens his weary face.

"Hannon le, Legolas. Gwadoren," he whispers in my own tongue. Thank you, Legolas. My brother.

He leans in to place a kiss on my both cheeks, an earnest, affectionate kiss - and then, on my lips. It is a continuation of the same gesture of friendship, intended as nothing but a confirmation of the bond that has grown between us. But instead of moving away his lips stay there, touching mine, frozen in time. Sooner than I know my hand has crept on the back of his head, and I am breathing into his mouth. I cannot tell which one of us falters first, but I realise this is no longer a brotherly kiss, but a hungry, desirous exchange I am unwilling to break free of.

The strings between us are delicate, yet firm and demanding: run your fingers through my hair and sparks will rain along my spine, make a sound of pleading and I will kiss you deeper, resist but a little and I will burn to press you tighter to this yearning forced inside the crumbling walls of my body.

Aragorn tears himself away from me, and his face is confused and vulnerable like I have not seen it before. I know what we have violated. A silence surrounds Evenstar of Imladris in our conversations, but I have long known of their promise to each other, of the choice they once made under the unchanging night skies. Of what should reach beyond the fates of two peoples separated from each other, beyond life and death.

We are both speechless.

He is the first to move, to break the ice that has frozen us in confusion. In silence he collects his blanket and his few carryings from the ground, drawing the hood of his cloak deep over his head so I cannot see his face. The glow of his touch still throbs in me quick and merciless and will not calm down, will not be still. Aragorn throws his pack on his shoulder. His whole body is turned towards the East, towards Mordor, towards the darkness that spreads from there like drops of blood in water. I see the steam of his breath in the morning air as he speaks to me one last time.

"Legolas..."

"Nothing has changed, Aragorn."

But even as I speak, a wind rises and sweeps over all living things on the ground, bending them, shaking them, changing the way they grow, and nothing will ever be the same again. Without looking back he walks away, taking with him the world as I have known it.

I let him go.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨


	2. Leaves of Gold There Grew

Rating for this chapter: R.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Chapter 2:** Leaves of Gold There Grew**

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

_Look: I feel how I'm moving away,  
how I'm shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.  
Only your smile spreads like sheer stars  
over you and, soon now, over me._

Rainer Maria Rilke, _Sacrifice_  
Translated by Edward Snow

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

¨

¨

**Lothlórien****, February 3019 of the Third Age**

¨

¨

_Arwen__ vanimelda, namárië!_

Thus I bade my farewell to a memory in sunlight by Cerin Amroth. On that hill I once stood, the hand of Evenstar folded inside my own, and chose my path. Long years have passed and I am divided in two: a foster child of the Elven-folk and an heir to the kingdoms of Men, two who belong to different places and times. When I step out of this realm, I will leave behind Estel, the foster son of Rivendell; despite what darkness the road ahead may hold, he shall ever linger on that green hill with his Evenstar, in the fairest of moments he has known. The fate of Aragorn son of Arathorn I will take upon me for good and bear it until my death, be the end of the road one short stab of sword away, or beyond long years of peace. For all is changed, and I can no longer turn back.

Lessened by one was the Fellowship when it entered the Golden Wood. And although he was but one, he was more: he knew earth and wind and meaning behind all things as only few know. With him our road may have twisted and wound, but it never strayed from its course. Without him the way is hidden, and I know it is my part to take the first steps.

I do not know yet what will guide them.

I must spend my grief away until it wears thin and leave here the burden of mourning, for the strain is heavy already, and strange mists cover our path. I must grieve deeply in solitude, I must grieve openly in the company of those who know the same sorrow, and then I must leave behind what has been and look towards what is yet to come. For the days of my life are growing shorter, and in the flow of time they fly by ever swifter. Even if I will be granted to walk the full span of my forefathers' kin on this earth, stone will be consumed but little and not many springs will run dry within the cycle of the years I will see. My bond to the Elf-kindred makes my time look a brighter and more fleeting flash by their slowly diminishing life. This bond is both a gift and a burden, true yet incomplete; I may never be one of them, but were it not for them, I would not be what I am today.

I am divided in two and see my own steps falter, I see them tarry.

Lady Galadriel placed a riddle into my heart as she put us through the trial of her gaze. She awakened a memory in me that had worn thin and faded, like a banner that had been waving under the sun for too many summers. She coloured it anew and wove the threads into their rightful places until the vision was clear before me, as if I had woken up to it this very morning. I saw in my mind the most familiar and beloved tree of my youth. It was no taller or fairer than other Rivendell trees, but I knew by heart the very shade of red that hued its top in the springtime, I could tell in the midsummer already what day of the year it would shed its first autumn-coloured leaf, and I could see the black and green web of its branches against the sky even with my eyes closed. Slender and straight rose the tree from the ground, calm and still while the world was changing.

Under the tree I saw myself, taller and stronger than my fifteen years of age, although not an ounce wiser. I pressed my hand to the smooth-white tree bark that was both cool and warm. Life wavered powerful below it, burning my hand like sunlight, whirring against my fingertips like insects' wings. I wrapped my arms around the tree and pressed my cheek against the trunk. I imagined what the tree would have told me, had I been given the gift of hearing possessed by the Elven-folk.

_I have grown here before your time, and here I will still be, when you are gone._

The strength of the tree flowed into me and cast a shimmering shelter around my heart, making me courageous and omnipotent.

Thus ended the memory and it was folded away, frail and colourless. I wondered and wanted to ask the Lady of her meaning, but the elven-light of her eyes was already turned away. She was having a silent conversation with Legolas of Mirkwood in a manner that only another Elf could understand. Legolas's lips were softly parted and a rare glow burned his cheeks. He seemed to be breathing in the words of the Lady, but I could not read their secret in him.

With that I left the Lady's halls, but the riddle lingered, gnawing at me. If the trial was meant to tempt us, why should she have shown me what was no longer in my reach? To abstain from it was easy, and I needed not lower my head under her gaze. How did she believe she would lure my heart with images of the past? For while the place was dearer to me than any other on earth and my hope was bound there, there is no magic known to Elves, Men or any other creatures that could reverse the flow of time.

There are many things I do not yet understand.

The weariness and wounds of my body have been washed away by gentle rainfalls and light winds, but the black scar of loss remains. Among the shadows of the woods my grief seeks the company of the one whose heart I know to be closest to my own in this matter. While death is different to Elves than Men, the sorrow wrought by it is no less, and of all my companions it was he who knew Gandalf as I did. We had walked with him on his journeys over many years, and countless were the tales he told us and kept from others. Memories have been stained dark by the loss, but if we can help each other brighten them into jewels on the band of days and nights, then the road may yet hold hope for us and our steps will be lighter.

I find Legolas on the flet where he has made his resting place. He is sitting near the edge of the narrow wooden platform, his knees bent, his body a stripe of light against the shadows rippling in the stream of air. The greenness of spring is long gone from the thick leaf-curtains fringing the flet; only the thin light of winter is reflected on their gold-veined surfaces. Legolas's fingers are fondling the worn wooden floor absently, and I can tell his mind is wandering in the Northern forests. I cloak my voice in light tones as I address him.

"I am surprised not to find master Gimli in your company."

He smiles and looks at me.

"Master Dwarf expressed his wish to get some rest after the tedious trials of the lunch. I do not believe we will see him before dinner."

"It is good our companions know how to gather their strength."

His smile shrivels away. He stands up and steps towards me, his gaze alert, then stops to examine my face.

"Aragorn, you mourn still."

"As do you. A farewell left unsaid is the hardest to bear." My voice is suddenly unfamiliar and broken. "Gandalf was gone too swiftly."

"In times of war and peril there is seldom time for a farewell," Legolas says quietly.

"It could have been prevented," I say, and bitterness rolls in me heavy and crushing. "I foresaw the danger, yet did not warn him well enough."

Legolas's eyes flash like light through the thick ceiling of the forest.

"Few things can be truly foreseen," he replies. "Time is a story that changes by the moment, and none of us may understand their part in it until it has been written through to the end."

"So may it seem to Elves, but to mankind time is an ever-narrowing path, the end of which is brought closer by every step," I say, my voice rising. "Many is the moment when a mortal wonders if his choices have gone astray. And if he will learn to choose any wiser, before the path comes irrevocably to the end."

"Have we not at each fork of our road chosen the direction that seemed to hold most hope for us at the time? Some choices are not made lightly, but under constraint."

"If something is done under constraint, how does it deserve the name of a choice anymore?"

The rawness in my voice surprises even me as I cry out the words. Legolas freezes, and nothing is moving on his face. Black and blue shadows are smouldering deep in his eyes.

"Because we could have given up and turned around, yet we carried on," he says very quietly.

And then he pulls me into his arms. My sigh vents out heavily into his hair. His chest is rising, his muscles tensing and relaxing under his skin. His frame is firm and warm and yet cool, his touch light and steady. My furrowed forehead rests against the arch of his smooth neck. His fingers move in my hair slowly, soothingly, and his voice falls in bright droplets among the branches that surround us.

"Grieve not for what is out of reach. Every deed will lead to others; water will run endlessly from within stone where it has once been unleashed from earth's captivity and break an ever wider passage to rush through. We cannot change the past, and the future remains veiled always. Perhaps the only meaning is written in this very moment."

I sink weakly against him and let him cradle me. His breathing follows mine in the steady rhythm of nights and days. He is the earth and I am a tide that comes and goes. He is the air and I am an insect that flies in it for a moment. Together we are the mourning that will pass because it must, but not vanish; it will grow to be a part of us, a step on our path.

He turns his head, moving it hardly for the width of a stalk of grass, but my lips hit unintentionally the skin below his ear. His hand starts in the folds of my tunic.

Desire stabs me deep and unexpected.

I hear Legolas gasp sharply and realise he has felt the stirring in my body. Instinctively I draw apart from him; my first thought is to turn around and walk away without looking back. Yet I do not take a step. I stand still, looking at him. I listen to my own heart that is hammering like hard rain on the surface of a flooding river. A narrow crack flickers on Legolas's face, but it seals up immediately and leaves behind a smooth, inscrutable expression.

His arm stirs and I quiver to yield. For one moment I imagine he is going to strike me. There are desires and deeds which must go unnamed and unspoken of between two men, and between a man and Elf they would be considered no less than unnatural. Once in the past the curtain of friendship fell from between us and borders were crossed that should not have been. We replaced it and never spoke of what had passed. I thought I had banished the weakness from me far into distant shadows. It would be but justified if he punished me for my failure, for betraying our friendship again.

But Legolas does not strike. He takes my hand, raises it and presses it onto his chest, upon his heart. The beat is steady and stable under his flesh and bones. Slowly he moves my hand lower along his body, towards his waist and ever downwards. I follow the movement with my eyes, until he stops it. I can feel him through the grey elven-fabric of his trousers. He is emanating a surprising heat, like a fiercely breathing, tense animal preparing for an attack inside its fur.

He hardens against my hand, and his desire cuts into me as deep as my own.

_Water will ever run from within stone where it has once been unleashed from earth's captivity._

I raise my eyes and look into his, where the elven-light burns dark and serious. Legolas's face is serene, but I see thoughts swarm in him restlessly. I draw my hand away. A shadow touches his brow before he speaks.

"Forgive me. I was too bold. I would not have you turn your eyes from the light that shines at the end of your path."

I feel another stirring inside me, this time about my heart.

"When even the wisest fall, there is naught but darkness on the path, and the very next step may meet an abyss," I reply. "Small is the comfort of memories and dreams in such times."

I raise my hand on Legolas's face. I run my fingertips over his cheekbone, along the graceful arch of the jaw. My thumb brushes his lips and my hand continues onto his neck. A low sound emerges from his throat and he clutches my wrist, stopping my touch.

"Yet I would not have you stray on a whim."

"It is no whim to me," I say, and know I have spoken the truth.

"Neither is it to me," he whispers.

And that is the end of words.

We stand still at the face of this understanding, both of us waiting for the other one to move first. Slowly his fingers tighten around my wrist. I hear my breathing stumble and break, mingle with his breathing as my face brushes his. His lips are there, moist and warm, and he kisses me deeply.

Everything in me is directed towards him, every thought, every touch, every rush of blood inside my veins.

Finally he breaks the kiss and looks at me examining, searching. I press my forehead against his, resting in the moment. His voice is not stable nor certain as he asks,

"What will this change?"

I remain quiet for a moment before answering.

"Everything. And yet nothing."

I draw back and another rift visits his face before hiding swiftly away.

"So be it, then."

I am divided in two.

I touch him. It is a mortal man's touch: impatient, hasty. It tries to grasp time and restrain it. His body is calm, nearly motionless against the fire of my hands. Life wavers powerful below his skin. He has grown here before my time, and here he will still be, when I am gone.

I taste moist woods and earth in him, living flesh and the spirit that inhabits it.

Slowly we remove every parting item of clothing from between us. We open the tight laces of tunics and rigid buckles of belts, arduous fastenings of trousers, uncomfortable knots of underwear. I know the clothes will be heavier to bear and their stains more difficult to wash away once I put them all on again. But Legolas touches me where I am both soft and hard, and I grow towards his light like a stalk. We intertwine as one as he guides my hands and mouth on his familiar, yet strange body. Wind blows quietly through the cage of branches above us. Leaves of gold move against each other.

When sleep crouches into me, Legolas's hand is upon my heart. He is awake beside me, the warmth of his skin on mine. His gaze lingers upon me spell-like. His arms will only loosen their hold of me when I know it no longer.

When sleep takes me, he remains.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Notes:

_Arwen vanimelda, namárië!_ = Beautiful Arwen, farewell!__

Frodo hears Aragorn speak these words at the foot of the hill of Cerin Amroth, when the Fellowship enters Lothlórien. Cerin Amroth was where Aragorn gave Arwen the ring of Barahir in 2980 T.A.: 'And there upon that hill they looked east to the Shadow and west to the Twilight, and they plighted their troth and were glad.' (_The Lord of the Rings_, Appendix A: 'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen'. See also Appendix B: 'The Tale of Years'.)

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨


	3. Beside the Walls

Rating for this chapter: R.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Chapter 3:** Beside the Walls**

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

_How can I keep my soul in me, so that  
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise  
it high enough, past you, to other things?  
I would like to shelter it, among remote  
lost objects, in some dark and silent place  
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound._

Rainer Maria Rilke, _Love Song  
_Translated by Stephen Mitchell__

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

¨

¨

**Helm's Deep, March 3019 of the Third Age**

¨

¨

I have known a world without him, and I will know it again.

As sharp morning light cuts the night open and shadows in the Deep take on a dark red colour, he is living and breathing by my side. I should not sing of us, of this moment. The mortal and immortal kind have been separated at the beginning of all time, and that separation is to last beyond the end of days. But what else would I sing of in a world where the ground beneath us and time around us have been torn apart, where the stars in the sky are quivering and no new summer growth will follow the fading?

I have seen death before. I have seen it take warriors and hunters ferociously and without warning, I have seen it slowly wrap its cloak around those whose heart sorrow has gripped too tightly. But never before have I seen it pour heavily upon earth and flood in swallowing whirls that capture all living things in their maelstrom. And never before have I known how to feel fear for the inevitable, the finite. Death is a stranger among my people, it walks beside us and sometimes brings sorrow by taking someone away; but for us death is no unknown step into the dark, and not the last of steps. We have been granted a way back to life from the Halls of Mandos, and our eternity is as long as all times of Arda.

For Men death is different.

When the battle swarmed around us black, slick and glistening with rain, my eyes followed Aragorn among its ever-moving avalanches. The glow of thunder framed him against the dark sky. Tall and fearless he stood upon the wall, even as the enemy rushed in gusts towards him from all directions. And as flashes of lightning broke the landscape into a thousand sharp splinters, white light blazed around him, the sword struck and cut. His raw, bloodstained fingers squeezed the hilt, and even there, in the core of madness, I suddenly felt in myself the marks they had left. They had trailed my body insatiably and writhed on my skin oblivious of everything else.

I was not the same as before, and neither was he.

Every time I lost sight of Aragorn, my heart was strange and new in my chest. As I was guarding the gate of Hornburg on the stairs with no other weapon left than a single arrow, as I prompted him to run for safety, saw him turn towards me and stumble under the eyes of the enemy – I knew for the first time the urgency, the unrestrained, frantic haste of Ilúvatar's younger children as they rush through their lives. I could see death surging towards us, dark and foreign as night, terrible as day that reveals all: things done and undone and sadness born of them.

The corrupted and the cursed reached out for him. I had one chance to kill, and I killed so he would live. But it was not enough, one arrow against a thousand Orcs. I was but an insect caught in a web, beating its wings in vain. I had no power over his life and death before mightier forces. Only a boulder cast upon the enemy from the high wall saved him. Aragorn grasped my hand and I dragged him up the last steps, inside the stronghold. We cast ourselves at the door and it closed with a clang. We were breathing heavily and his chest was rising against mine. Our bodies were pressed together. Our eyes were locked together. Our hands were clasped together.

We were both alive, yet in the face of this battle we were both mortal.

At dawn the rescue finally came. The deadly forest of spears, swords, arrows and flashing flames withered away slowly, and another one sprang up to replace it. It stood ominous and silent before our eyes, emanating soundless menace and dark intentions long grown in cold shadows. This strange forest evoked restlessness in me. Just as I had been flung upon an unknown shore by the unpredictable winds of the world, so had this forest furtively grown its boles in a place they did not belong. The stems and branches only resembled those of my home from afar and on the surface, and the whispering of the leaves in the wind did not invite, but rejected and blamed. I wanted to ride into the bewildering halls of the trees and shout my defence at ears that refused to listen, to plead for understanding of ancient creatures whose hearts had in the course of time lost all but a fading trace of the sheen of the sun, the vastness of the skies and the echo of words spoken in secret.

I felt an invisible toil tighten around me and tried to shrug it away, but it lingered upon me relentlessly, gentle, yet unbreakable. I had knowingly walked into it in the golden twilight of Lothlórien, and there was no longer a way out. The Lady spins her webs out of light and wisdom, and therefore they hold stronger than any entrapments of the enemy. She weaves into them the strings of the heart that cannot be severed. Carefully she sets her words, not counselling one way or the other, and therefore they guide more clearly than any map.

My path had been drawn at my feet, and the way of it was to find, then lose.

When I saw birds above the forest grown out of nowhere, I recognised the Lady's warnings in the beats of their wings and expected to hear cries that would bestir sea-longing in me. For if a forest could move from its roots and come to a place that had been a home but for green grass, could not the sea climb along the earth far from its old shores and lure me to go with it, even if my task was not yet fulfilled? But the birds were black and grey and brown, and their voices told of nothing but wind and creatures crawling the earth below. Of water and light beyond the sea they did not sing, not of havens of no return, where the only open route was towards the sea.

I avoided the gaze of Aragorn, who was riding beside me only a few arm-lengths away, but my heart was relieved.

This morning the halls of the stronghold are burial chambers and sick rooms, where the fume of death lingers. Aragorn walks among the wounded, pale with exhaustion but his hands and eyes still steady, cleansing and tending injuries with herbs and bandages. He is coming from the kitchen quarters, carrying a cauldron of steaming water and a bundle of clean clothes. I see him lay the cauldron on the floor and sit on a long wooden bench beside the wall of the large room. He fumbles for something in the folds of his cloak and takes out his pipe. His fingers are slow and rigid as he begins to fill it. The pipe slips out of his hand and breaks in two on the stone floor.

Aragorn closes his eyes, sighs deeply and bends down to pick up the pieces of the pipe. He places them carefully in a leather sachet, which he hangs from his belt. When he raises his eyes, I am standing before him. I place my hand on his shoulder. He looks at me, his face stone-grey and serious, eyes still bright and alert. The lines on his skin seem deeper than the day before; they are light and discernible furrows under the dark dirt of the battle. Dribbled blood from a long, reddish scrape has dried in a brown stripe on his neck. I let one of my hands brush his face quickly and his gaze wanders restlessly in the room, marking if anyone has seen my gesture. The wounded are sleeping or wailing, the healthy are walking among them, bringing water, tending the wounds or talking in a soothing manner. No one pays attention to us, and Aragorn relaxes.

"Would you not grant yourself some rest?" I ask quietly.

"There is so much to do." He leans his arms onto his knees, resting his head in his hands and rubbing his temples. "I wish I had the gift of the Elf-kindred to sleep in waking."

"That gift is not needed now. By Gandalf's advice and the order of Théoden King I am here to take you to the chamber that has been prepared for the Three Hunters." I lower myself down, bringing my face to the level of his. "Your only task today is to take rest until afternoon comes and it is time to ride on once more."

A smile spills on Aragorn's face and brightens it for a moment through the weariness.

"I will always heed the advice of an old friend," he replies, "and I will bow to the King's orders inside the borders of his realm."

I pick up the cauldron and smell a faint savour of healing herbs arising from it. Aragorn follows me through corridors and stairways into a humble chamber of stone. Daylight is wedging onto the floor through the small window-hole veiled with thin fabric. There are three narrow alcoves in the stone walls where beds have been prepared. They are covered by thick, untouched bedding. Aragorn frowns.

"Is master Gimli not here? I thought I had sent him to sleep his wound better."

"He said he would rather rest in the sick room near the kitchen, where wine and bread are closer at hand."

Neither one of us says out loud what we are both thinking. Since we left the Golden Wood, we have been careful not to show the world anything but the bond of friendship that has long been evident between us. But while the words of the Dwarves in matters of the heart are few, spare and graceless as unpolished rock in the pits of the mountains, their eyes are keen for the truth. Even in the lurid dusk of their mines they can tell a precious metal from another, less worthy one. How faint light refracts from the surfaces of different crystals discloses to them all they need to understand of the quality of the stone. Who knows what revealed us to Gimli – perhaps one word or look sufficed, a hand that lingered on a shoulder for a moment longer than necessary. But he has seen what binds us together, and wants to step aside to give us this short moment hidden from others.

Friendship is not measured in words, but deeds.

Aragorn sits down on the edge of an alcove and takes off his boots. His movements are stiff, painful. He had ridded himself of the leather armour and heavy mail shirt forthwith after the battle, but even without them his back seems tender and sore. I suspect he has taken worse blows than he is willing to admit.

"Let me cleanse your wounds."

"They are but scratches," he replies. "Nothing that water and rest will not heal."

"Yet you have been avoiding the pitcher and the bed since the sunrise almost as skilfully as the arrows of the Orcs last night."

He glances at me, surprised. I smile and raise my eyebrow. The fine lines in the corners of his eyes fold into clusters and a low laughter visits his lips.

"After all these years Elves still amaze me. In a moment like this, should you not be singing sorrowful hymns of the souls that left the circles of the world last night, instead of jesting with me?"

I feel my smile diminish under his look.

"There is too much sorrow in the world these days. Joy should be found where it may, even in unexpected moments."

I lay the cauldron down, sit next to him and take one of the clothes he has brought. I dip it in the hot water and wring it. The cloth is made of a light-coloured, tight-woven fabric of Men I have not seen before. It feels coarse and strange in my fingers.

Aragorn takes off his leather cuffs and opens the laces of his tunic. I wait patiently as he pulls the garment over his shoulders, but I note he shudders as the fabric scratches his back. The pungent tang of sweat, salt and blood pours on my face from his bare upper body, so strong I can all but taste it. Behind their mixture I can feel his own scent surrounding me like a familiar landscape.

He turns his back on me and an uncomfortable knot tightens inside me as I see an enormous purple bruise that reaches from the edge of his left shoulder blade over the muscles far towards the right side. It looks like a strike of sword, only stopped from sinking into his fragile mortal body by the worn metal rings of the mail shirt, a mere thin layer of leather and fabric. Had the blade struck further up, his unprotected neck, he would not be here, but among the dead that were being carried away from the battlefield in the bone-pale morning light. Only one well-aimed stab, and blood would have escaped his veins, his emptying heart would have slowed down and finally given up beating. No one would touch him again, but to carry the body aside from the way of the living; he would be laid to a rest from which no morning could wake him. His body would crumble into earth, his spirit would travel far to unnamed lands, known to but One in place and purpose.

I remember his words in Mirkwood, the colour of his eyes in the translucent twilight of the dying night, the inevitable in his voice.

_On some paths you cannot follow._

I do not let my hands tremble as I press the damp cloth carefully on his skin and begin to wipe away the traces of the battle. I let the cloth travel along his broad back, I touch his wounds, fresh blood-red cuts and puckered scars of old. I feel their embossments and engravings under my fingertips, writings that tell the story of his life. Aragorn quivers, when I brush the bruise. I dip the cloth in the water again and foment the dark spot, where the web of broken veins reaches out under the skin. His breathing sounds heavy and ragged. He changes his posture, turns towards me and closes his eyes.

I follow the lines on his brow and in the corners of his mouth as I cleanse the dark dirt off his face and neck. Slowly I let my hands wander downwards, over his bare chest, back to the shoulders and along his arms. Aragorn sighs, his fingers stir on the bed nearly unnoticeably. The glow in my groin thickens and radiates into my limbs. We have walked many long days and nights without privacy, without as much as a chance for quick, secret touches, the constraint of moving on having fenced our road. Every thought and wish has been left to prowl between us, ferocious and heavy. I lift his hand and place his fingers on my lips.

Aragorn opens his eyes, withdraws from me restlessly and looks at me.

"I latched the door behind me," I say quietly.

"Should somebody try to come in, they will wonder," he replies in a low voice.

I brush a stray lock of hair off his face. "They will think we wish to sleep off our weariness undisturbed."

We look at each other as we did in Lothlórien, and as we have since only looked when all other eyes are turned away.

The air stirs between us and then we are merging into one another, kissing fiercely, breathlessly. Desire sparkles in us and the flames of his hands are dancing on my skin, catching my hair, their white fire blazing all over my body, until I writhe and shrivel in their ring like a burning tree. I crush him to me tightly and he winces, whimpering painfully into my mouth. I realise I have pressed hard his wounds and bruises, the tender and sore spots of his body, broken from the battle.

"Did I hurt you?"

He smiles a nearly invisible smile.

"At least I know I am alive."

I let my forehead lean against his. I place my hand upon his heart and he places his on my chest. We listen to each other without saying anything: the beat of each other's hearts against our fingertips, the breathing that lives between us in waves cradling to and fro, the movements in the darkness of our bodies, the growing fire within each other.

Place your fingers upon my bones and I marvel at how the hollows of your hands fit in with the mounds of my face; place your lips upon my mouth and I am in awe of how everything finds its place, as if there had never been other hollows and mounds, other hands, other lips. As water flows over stone without altering its course and gives it a new shape, as leaves grow always the same, yet anew – we move as bodies in search of each other have always moved, yet unlike anyone else ever.

Aragorn's look is fixed upon my face as he kneels down on the stone floor, pushing the hem of my tunic up and opening my trousers. His hand lingers upon my hip, languid as an animal gathering its strength on a stone left hot by the sun. I intend to say something, but he frees me from inside the fabric and takes me in his mouth, sliding his tongue against my flesh.

My fingers tug at his hair as I thrust deep seeking a rhythm, and he is more than any words I know to speak, more than the flavour of metal and earth on my tongue, more than the fire in my loin and the scent I am breathing in. He is the skin around my flesh and bones, a rune branded into my heart with a white-hot iron that no time in the world will heal away. When my body has dissolved into dust, when the letters of my name have been weathered unrecognisable and the places where I have touched him have been swept off the face of the earth, it will still glow brightly.

Strength escapes me and I spend into his mouth. My whole body trembles as I collapse against him, my eyes closed. I pull him up to straddle my lap and he presses onto me.

"You cried out," he whispers into my neck.

I quiver and hold onto him too tight. Aragorn does not move, he merely holds me, the only familiar thing in this unfamiliar world of Men.

"Worry not," he says, and his hand curls up to rest in the hollow of my neck. "At least I know you are alive."

We lie down on the narrow bed, our bodies entwined, and I push my hand under the waistband of his trousers. His breathing ghosts on my face as he arches against me. His lips are moving on mine and his figure draws a luminous image of desire in the grave-like bleak dusk of the alcove.

"Legolas," he says, and I feel the word on my skin as clearly as I hear it. "Legolas."

Afterwards I wipe my hand with the cloth and settle next to him. We are two leaves shrivelled together on winter-crusted grass, where wind has thrown us: without shelter. The man-made walls around us are but a delusion. There are eyes that see through them, and there are forces that will make them waver and fall.

I keep the Lady's message hidden inside me, for it is not yet time for it to see daylight. I know Aragorn is carrying a secret of his own. A day may come when we mend the story for each other and bring together the halves, making the image complete. Or I may carry my own part alone through years to come, seeing colour dissolve from it like green withdraws from autumn leaves and watching it burn to ashes like a far-away home one has left behind and can never return.

Maybe days will crumble into the soil of earth everywhere, and there will be no years to come.

Light is climbing the cold walls of the room. We are lying in each other's arms exhausted and raw from the battle, inside this unmerciful time that has been torn apart around us. He is living and breathing by my side, and I should not sing of this moment. Wherever his path may lead, it winds away from me.

I have known a world without him, and I will know it again; but it will no longer be the same world.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Notes:

_(...) for us death is no unknown step into the dark, and not the last of steps. We have been granted a way back to life from the Halls of Mandos, and our eternity is as long as all times of Arda._

Elves can die in battle or from grief. This is based on a passage from _The Silmarillion_: 'For the Elves die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return. But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world...' (_The Silmarillion_, ch.1: 'Of the Beginning of Days'.)

This passage also hints at the somewhat vague concept present in Tolkien's unfinished work that suggests Elves can be re-born and their spirit (_fëa_) may return to the world in a new bodily form after a time spent in the Halls of Waiting, a place in Valinor where a Vala known as Mandos summons the dead. The Valar are powerful spirits that helped shape Middle-earth and reside in the Undying Lands in the West.

For a further explanation on the concepts of Elven death and re-birth see 'Laws and Customs among the Eldar' and 'Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth' (both in _Morgoth's__ Ring_, History of Middle-earth vol. 10).

_Ilúvatar__:_

The 'Lord of the World', creator of everything in Tolkien's mythology. Equivalent of 'God' in monotheistic religions. Also referred to as 'Eru' or 'the One'. 'Ilúvatar's younger children' refers to the mortal race of Men, as opposed to the immortal Elves, who came into the world before them.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨


	4. The River Flows Away

Rating for this chapter: R.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Chapter 4: **The River Flows Away**

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

_Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were  
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.  
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter  
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive._

Rainer Maria Rilke, _The__ Sonnets to Orpheus, XIII  
_Translated by Stephen Mitchell__

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

¨

¨

**Gondor****, June 3019 of the Third Age**

¨

¨

One age of the world wanes away before my eyes, and another one waxes.

Today at dawn I stood with Gandalf in the old hallow of kings on top of Mount Mindolluin, looking at the Great River that ran towards the distant shimmer of the sea like fleeting days. And there, on the edge of living earth and slumbering snow, the sign was given. Long years had Gondor awaited it, while the memory of my forefathers faded into worn words on the pages of yellowing books, while hope diminished and faith washed away with turning tides. But not all matters are matters of faith; there are those that even the strongest of hands cannot enforce or hinder. The sapling sprang from the soil in the appointed hour, and my future was written upon it.

Only now do I see clearly the course of my growth.

As I step into the white stone chamber where I have dwelt since Minas Tirith hailed me as the King, a motionless figure is standing by the window. Evening has already darkened the sky. The lanterns on the walls are unlit, and the only faint light in the room originates from the great night-time fires burning outside the castle. The shadow of the iron bars on the window wavers on the floor.

I close the door behind me and turn the key in the lock, until it clicks. Legolas turns around and closes the distance between us with a few swift steps. I wrap my arms around him and pull him into a tight embrace. We stand like this for a long time, every inch of our bodies pressed together, reluctant to let go. One of his hands is resting steadily on the nape of my neck while the other is moving on my back. His fingers stop in the hollow below my ribs and bend slightly, sighing on my skin. Warmth floods through me. I breathe in his scent of open land and green woods, so different from the stagnant air of the city. Legolas kisses me with soft lips and the coarse stubble on my chin grazes his smooth skin. We let the kiss deepen and linger, forgetting ourselves into each other, unwilling to put the moment into words.

When we finally pull apart breathlessly, Legolas's gaze radiates into me like sunlight through fog, persistent and gentle.

"I saw you plant the White Tree on the courtyard," he says quietly. "How far off is the time?"

"The escort is already closer to Gondor than Edoras. Only a few days now, a week at most."

"Who is riding with Lady Evenstar?"

"Master Elrond with his sons and the household of Imladris. I believe Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn joined them in the Golden Wood with more of your noble folk."

Legolas's face is in the shadow, but a restlessness I cannot decipher is stirring in his eyes. He sighs. "We have loitered too long. You should have expelled me from your chamber weeks ago."

"I know." I cannot keep sorrow entirely away from my voice.

Legolas takes my hands and turns my palms up. He looks at them intensely. His touch explores their furrows, the hard and soft patches of my fingers, the surface of the skin oft torn and recovered, the veins looming under it. His thumbs stop in the dents of my palms.

"These hands are not for me," he says. "Their task is to heal the wounds of the earth, to sweep the darkness from the hearts of Men and rebuild stone upon stone where it crumbled away under the Shadow."

Legolas brings my hands to his lips. His breath concentrates into dew against my knuckles. I think I see something quiver on his face, but it is impossible to tell for certain in the twilight of the room.

"Aragorn, I will not come to you again."

The words remain between us carved in stone, deep and finite.

We both know it must be so. If I were lesser, a peasant without a wife or a lone warrior seeking bodily comfort from a brother in arms, I might not be condemned. But when the King falters, his realm will fall. We have no other choice but to disarm ourselves, for our weapons will not suffice against this. There is no shelter of woods, of war and world torn apart for us now. There is but a barren city of stone, built upon the customs and laws of Men. Here the streets are narrow and even the largest rooms too small. They will not accommodate the laws of the wild.

I feel a tug inside me, as if somebody were trying to pull the heart out of my chest.

Legolas lets his hands drop down to my waist. My fingertips take in the warmth of his lips, they move to his cheekbones and his brow, run through his hair. He sighs and pulls me to him. Our faces are close enough for our lips to brush. I lick his upper lip very lightly with the tip of my tongue, and his hips buck against mine. Desire floods into me as a familiar fiery stream that settles into my groin. I push him against the wall, my hands seeking the naked skin under his tunic and fumbling for the laces of his trousers. Legolas gasps and melts momentarily in my arms, but then he clutches my shoulders and captures me between the cool stonewall and his heat-emanating body with one quick, well-aimed move.

"No rush," he whispers into my ear. "There is time still."

"Not enough," I reply, and my voice is rough as stones in the city walls, bare as a leafless forest.

Our hips are restless, demanding, fierce enough to wound, as they press together. I hear my own rapid breathing and shiver as Legolas's hands wander along my body.

"I will show you how short moments may seem longer," he says. "Undress."

I take off my cloak and tunic, my boots and trousers. The stone floor feels cold beneath the soles of my feet. Legolas lights a lantern on a hook on the wall and turns to look at me. He touches my face tenderly and strokes my sides. His caresses wander down my back and continue to my behind.

"Now, undress me," he pleads, and his gaze moves on my naked body like light on water.

I am all aching, iron-hard lust.

I slide my fingers under his tunic, between the soft fabric and heated skin, letting the sensation flow into me. The garment falls to the floor. I kneel down to take off his boots. Slowly I open his trousers and take them off, too, releasing his rigid, arching erection. Legolas's eyes close and his lips crack open, but his hand twines into my hair, holding my head still, preventing me from taking him into my mouth. In the flickering light of the lantern the edges of his face and body soften and smoothen. The scars he bears seem faded like a well-worn map. They are pale and nearly invisible streaks under the skin that has grown even and whole to cover them -- so unlike the traces of time and life on my mortal body.

I breathe against his flesh and a moan falls from his lips. I feel his nails press red sickle-shapes on the skin of my shoulders.

"Please, get up," he says.

I rise to my feet and Legolas moves behind me. I let out a sound as his arms wrap around my waist and his breathing fondles the back of my neck. I feel his arousal press onto my back. He nibbles my ear and draws a moist line on the sensitive skin below it with his tongue.

"Go to the bed," he whispers, and that whisper is made of fire.

I climb onto the bed on top of the heavy, soft covers. His body is a soundlessly gliding stretch of moonlight among the shadows of the room as he settles next to me and finds a bottle of oil from under the bedding, where I hid it last night.

He knows how to touch me.

His breathing lingers on my susceptible skin, his strong taste on my tongue, the sweep of his hair on my neck, the weight of his thigh upon mine. He is a bright flame bending languidly against me, and I let myself burn. When I am finally trembling and ready, mere bewildered words and pleading noises and impatient touches, he straddles my lap and pours oil on his hands. Its scent mingles with ours as he applies it to me and fits me fully inside him.

My fingers dig into his narrow hips, and I cannot suffocate a moan as the fire flares through me.

Legolas remains still for a moment, looking at me ardently. As if in a flash of memory I see myself through his eyes: a fleeting, transforming creature dashing by, whose beauty and strength years will shed too soon, who brushes his persistence like a faint current of air and then dissolves with the passing wind. I want to leave a trace of myself in him, so all would not fade. I want something of us to remain when I am gone and he has left these shores, and no one will remember. But how does one change the colour of the sky or shape of a mountain, how does one brand the surface of the sea? How can an immortal body be marked? How can a memory be carved into an infinite mind that has all eternity to forget?

My lips form words, but my voice stops in my throat. And then the words matter no more, because he begins to move.

He rocks back and forth, rising and falling as if on top of a wave, quivering under my hands, wailing a few syllables that remotely resemble my name. His wiry and lean warrior's body arches and tenses and flings. He touches himself and I touch him. I am the song of blood in my own ears and thick throbbing desire, painful edges of teeth against the marsh of my tongue, a relentless rush of noises. And finally we are one big glowing churning spilling spasm, and in its core my heart is struggling its way out of my chest, as if trying to crawl inside his skin and nestle next to his heart.

When it is over, Legolas is lying in my arms, and I am still inside him. At length he rises and seeks among the pillows a linen cloth to wipe us both clean. I turn to my side and he lies down, facing me. The soft light of the lantern lingers on his skin like a caress. Our fingers interlace and warmth closes around us as a circle inside which we breathe in each other, listening to the night: the heavy footsteps of guards on the courtyard, the wind sweeping over the high walls, the cries of birds hunting in the dark.

I think of the voices of white birds that froze him for a moment in Pelargir. A mist veiled his eyes then, as if elven-sleep had suddenly got a hold of him. The moment passed, but left an icy crust inside me.

"Do you hear the sea?" I ask after a long silence.

The smile dims on his fair face.

"I do not feel its smell or hear its words, but its song ceases in my heart nevermore," he says. "Day after day I know where it crashes onto the rocky shores, like a tree knows dawn after dawn where light will rise to nourish its growth."

Restlessness stirs inside me, but I need to know.

"Will you go to the Havens?"

He remains silent for a long time before answering.

"I will, but I do not know yet when. My people have plenty to do in your realm, and I wish to initiate their work."

I press closer to him and bury my face in his hair.

"I cannot ask you to stay longer than your will allows, just as you have never asked me to alter my choices. All I ask for is you not to depart over the sea without telling me."

"That I promise. In return, I would not have you leave this world without bidding a farewell," he replies.

"You have my word on it."

Legolas's lips are on my temple, and his voice is a mere whisper.

"Aragorn, this sorrow will yet pass for us both. My image will slowly wither and disperse in your memory, and a day will come when you can no longer restore the sound of my voice in your mind. Such is the way of Men's hearts."

The truth in his words stabs me. I move my head and lower my forehead to touch his.

"What will this change?" I ask, although I know the answer.

"Everything. And yet nothing." His face is grave. "Evenstar will take her place as the Queen of Gondor by your side, and together you will rule a thriving realm for many years of Men, and the line of Kings will continue."

"And you?"

His hand withdraws and emptiness replaces it in mine.

"I will go to the Glittering Caves and to Fangorn with Gimli, and then to my father's country. The time I will remain away will seem long to you. But I will return and bring my people from Mirkwood to the forests of Ithilien; thus the land will be blessed, and filled with lush growth and joy once more. I will send them to the White City to plant blossoming gardens, while the folk of the mountains labour and build the city anew."

Legolas's eyes are dark water with reflections of stars in it.

"Perhaps sometimes, if the King and Queen so wish, I will visit them as an old friend," he continues. "I will entertain them with stories of my journeys and hold their child, who will look at me with his mother's eyes and smile his father's smile. I may sing him a song in my own tongue, a song of the moon peeking into a beech forest from between green branches in the half-light of the morning. And as years pass, I will see on my visits as the firstborn grows and takes up bow and sword, while the youngest babe is still stretching in his cradle."

Legolas places my hand upon his chest. His fingers are cool, yet warm on top of my own. I feel the steady beating of his heart, and blood is pulsing in my veins in the same rhythm.

"But here, here nothing will change," he whispers, pressing my hand against his heart, looking at me as if I were sky and sea and earth, all together.

That is when I cry.

He holds me tightly in his arms. Somewhere in the distance of heavens stars are bursting to life and dying away. My tears are petty in comparison, but large and painful as they are shredding their way out of me.

I fall asleep with Legolas's face bright before my eyes and his voice a quiet stream in my ears.

The groves of dreams are strange and hazy, but one of their trees I know. It has grown here before my time, and here it will still be, when I am gone. Slender and straight it rises from the ground, calm and still while the world is changing.

I see the green leaves turn golden against the blue sky. I see the sky fade into a metallic grey and a chilly wind blow through the leaves that shrivel and wither and are caught in the wind. I see the tree crook and hang its breaking branches while moss swallows the trunk. I see life leak out of the tree.

I try to touch the tree and wrap my arms around it, but I cannot, for I no longer have a body. Lady Galadriel is standing next to the tree like an ice-white flower in the grey of the winter. I read sadness on her face. I try to cry out to her, but I cannot, for I no longer have a voice. She turns her back, walks away and leaves the tree to die. A mighty storm shakes the wasted trunk, and it shivers, wails, breaks and screams as a beast struggling in agony. I watch all this from a chamber of stone behind a barred window, and I cannot break out, though the scream is cutting to my very core.

I wake with a start. It is still dark outside, and the soft glimmer of fire is dancing on the walls. The lantern has gone out. Legolas is standing naked at the window and looking out. _Calm and still while the world is changing._

"Were you weeping?"

Legolas turns towards me a little too swiftly and sharply. His body is firm and alert, but his face remains in shadow. It is hard for me to imagine traces of tears on it.

"I thought you were asleep," he replies, and his voice tells me nothing.

"I saw you. I saw you wither and die."

"What do you speak of?"

I think of the Lady, the sadness on her face and something else behind it -- absoluteness, inescapable will to settle matters into their predetermined course. I think of how she turned her back and walked away.

"Come here." I say it as a quiet plea, and Legolas does not resist. He sits down next to me on the edge of the bed. I sit up and stroke the back of his hand with my thumb. "Something happened to both of us in the Golden Wood. You do not need to tell me, if you do not want to," I say, "but will you still let me tell you? I wish to understand, that is all."

He nods slowly. I tell him about the vision that the Lady had painted before my eyes in Lothlórien; the tree that was the source of strength and courage to me, a home and shelter; and I tell him about the dream where I saw the tree die.

"The tree was you," I say. "It was always you. But I do not understand the meaning of this."

Legolas is still and mute as a statue of stone, as if his spirit had suddenly escaped, leaving behind but an empty shell. When he finally speaks, there is more sadness in his voice than I have ever heard before.

"I knew it had to be her doing. I just did not know how."

"No. It was our doing. I came into your arms, because I wanted you. Not because I was sent against my own will. You must never doubt that." I fall silent and hesitate before continuing. "Unless you have a different story to tell."

Legolas smiles a quick and faint smile that flashes in the dark.

"I do not doubt that. Yet we have been but insects in the webs of those stronger than us," he replies. "I will tell you. It is better we both know."

And thus he begins to tell me. With each word the image is woven fuller and wider, the threads take their places and the colours brighten. I see my path grow narrow and my fate tighten around me, and there is no wriggling out of it. The Evenstar shines far ahead, but another sheen lights my dark road. My predetermined part is to build a bridge between two worlds, to amend what has been broken; but I myself must always remain divided in two, without wholeness. I must build my happiness upon what I have been granted, even if my will were otherwise.

"Now you know what message was hidden in your dream," Legolas says to end his tale. "But it was wrong about something. I will not wither and die. I have not taken on a heavier strain than I can bear. We must not drag the past behind us or push the future ahead as a burden, but take life as it is given to us in this moment."

"That is precisely what we have done, and now we are paying the price," I say, and my voice stumbles and breaks.

Sadness is still veiling his eyes, but something else ripples behind it. "Then let us at least make the most of the moments that still belong to us," he replies.

Slowly Legolas draws the heavy bedcover off my legs, until the chilly night air is licking my skin. His hands move over my body, and he opens me with fierce, overwhelming tenderness. Then he takes me for the last time. He sinks into me, is inside me like a knife deep in an open wound: cutting and burning, making me writhe and scream. One day the coarse patterns of scar tissue will cover the wound. I will be able to look at it and touch it years from now, alone and in secret, when nobody knows, not even him.

Time and again we whisper onto each other's skin all we shall never say after this night.

Shadows crawl along the floor to the bed and spread over us. Behind their mesh silence grows between us fuller than the words of any language. The cold blade of the moon descends between us. The sharp-edged morning light opens a gulf between us, and we stand still on both sides of it. We watch a story known only to the two of us turn colourless with the night, become unnoticeable and unimportant as it is buried under time and memory.

His story. My story.

Outside on the courtyard the White Tree is growing, reaching out its branches towards the sun and heralding the beginning of a new age. The hour will come when a guard sees from the highest watchtower the one who is to step to the throne by my side. When she arrives, I will take her hand and smile at her as if I had seen her face before my eyes every moment, as if her voice had never languished from my ears, as if her image had never dimmed in my deceitful mortal memory. And songs will be made of us that tell how all the stars flowered in the sky, when King Elessar wedded Arwen Undómiel, and the tale of their long waiting and labours was come to fulfilment.

They tell of nothing else.

When Legolas and I leave the chamber at dawn, our steps part into different directions. I do not look back, and I will never know if he does.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Notes:

There seems to be some confusion in canon as to when Aragorn found the White Tree on Mount Mindolluin. The text near the end of the chapter 'The Steward and the King' (_RotK_) reads, 'And Aragorn planted the new tree in the court by the fountain, and swiftly and gladly it began to grow; and when the month of June entered in it was laden with blossom.' This seems to suggest Aragorn found and planted the tree before June. However, 'The Tale of Years' (_LotR_, Appendix B) lists June 25th, 3019 T.A. as the finding date. Despite my efforts I couldn't find an explanation for this inconsistency. For the purposes of this story, I've relied on the date given in 'The Tale of Years', which places the finding of the tree just before Arwen's arrival at Minas Tirith and Aragorn and Arwen's wedding on the day of Midsummer.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨


	5. Across So Wide a Sea

A/N:

Just as I expected, _Leaves of Gold_ took me quite a while to finish. If anybody out there is still reading, the story has been fully revised and is now complete.

Thanks to everyone who has left feedback. Every word of it counts. :)

Rating for this chapter: PG-13.

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Chapter 5: **Across So Wide a Sea**

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

_Is it not time that lovingly we freed ourselves  
from the beloved and, quivering, endured:  
as the arrow endures the bow-string's tension,  
and in this tense release becomes more than itself.  
For staying is nowhere._

Rainer Maria Rilke, _Duino__ Elegies: the first elegy_._  
_Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming__

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

¨

¨

**Ithilien****, May 120 of the Fourth Age**

¨

¨

He has left.

And I am leaving, too. The world I have known has come to an end.

The day I turned my back on Aragorn and took to the silent vaults of Fangorn Forest, the image of him in his waving white cloak burned long behind my eyes. And with it burned away all words: those spoken and those never said. While all Middle-earth praised the great deeds of the Fellowship and sang of the King of the West, my heart was mute with grief, and songs turned into ashes on my tongue. A thicket of memories grew around me, casting its long shadows wherever I went. When I entered Eryn Lasgalen, every leaf turning in the wind, every movement of light on the green forest floor spoke to me of him. His footsteps followed mine relentlessly under the trees where we had once walked together, past the dark dells we had avoided on our journeys in unspoken agreement, to the chamber where he had stayed when visiting my father's palace.

When I came to the South, I hoped his shadow would pass from my side on the paths of Ithilien I had never shared with him. But I should have known my own heart better. Aragorn's echo dwelled in me, and I had no means of deadening it. His absence was so tangible it ripened into a presence – the presence of what could not be, yet could not be undone. Sometimes I would speak to him, as if he could hear me. I imagined his low voice and his answers; his brows knitting together as he concentrated on listening; and the twitch in the corners of his lips as a smile crept upon them. Sometimes I found myself touching him in my thoughts, and I ached inside and out, because I knew he could not feel or return the touch. I avoided the city of stone that enclosed him within its walls, but day after day I knew where it lay, like a tree knows evening after evening where the last distant light on the horizon will be caught in the heavy webs of night. He was ever there, yet ever out of reach.

Just like the sea.

Stalks withered down, rose and withered again. Years were washed into oblivion like trails on seashore sand. One by one the mortals I had tied myself to with bonds of friendship left the world like strangers who glance at an unknown land briefly in awe, then journey far away. But Aragorn had been granted a longer life, and he remained.

And so did I.

Three moons ago, when the month of Nínui was in half and the ground was numb with winter, Aragorn rode to meet me in the forests of Ithilien. He arrived in the blue and grey haze of the evening, when it was no longer day and not yet night. He travelled in a modest fashion like a ranger of old and had shed all recognisable tokens of a ruler. Only two trusted swordsmen from his court accompanied him as guardians. As he dismounted from his horse, gave the reins for his companion to hold and threw back his hood, my heart stirred. The shadows on his face were different and their shapes had grown sharper. Where once had been but a thin line, was now a web of furrows. There was not a sole empty and unmapped place in him. Light and twilight, present and past were resting on his brow. The world had written his story to an end.

"Hail, Legolas Thranduilion, Lord of the Elves of Ithilien," he said, bowing to me. His voice was deeper, older than I remembered.

"Hail, Aragorn Arathornion, King Elessar of the Men of Gondor and Arnor," I replied, bowing back. "This is an unexpected and rare pleasure."

He said nothing, but lifted a hand on his chest and nodded slightly, never taking his eyes off mine.

I gave orders to take his horse to be fed and rested. I proclaimed I would dine with the King, and his companions left us. We walked together towards a cluster of trees surrounding a dark, calm forest pond. The first stars had already been lit on the surface of the water. Around the pond tree branches sweeping the ground were bent to form walls among which my halls had been built. I led Aragorn to a room where I usually slept and ate when I did not join the company of my kinsfolk under the open skies. It was tightly veiled by walls of branches and tapestries woven of thin fabric. He sat down on a divan covered by animal skins. I took my seat opposite to him, on the other side of a low wooden table at the ends of which two lanterns were burning. Their light fell on Aragorn's grey hair like shreds of moonlight on sea. His hands were resting still on his lap, their skin thin as a moth's wing and pale against the deep blue of his tunic. I waited for him to speak.

"I wish we could forget about titles and formalities tonight, and talk without the obstacles of years between us," he began. "I have come because the path of time is wearing narrow beneath my feet, and I did not know when I could hope for you to pay a visit."

"I am sorry I have not been to Minas Tirith more often, Aragorn," I said, but he raised his hand to silence me.

"There is no need for you to justify yourself. I would have done the same." A melancholy smile touched his lips. "I am grateful for the times you have been our guest, and Gimli has brought tidings of you often."

"I see he has carried the word both ways, then."

Aragorn responded to my smile, but then solemnity took over his face and he captured my gaze. Although he spoke in a calm voice, I felt something behind his words that he seemed to struggle to control.

"Legolas, I have never kept my purposes from you, and I will not do so now. My days are full. When the courtyard tree next blossoms in Gondor, I will no longer be there to see it."

"So you have come to bid a farewell." My words lingered in the air for a moment before turning dry and lifeless and rustling down to the ground.

"Yes, I have come to redeem the promise I once made, but that is not the only reason," Aragorn said. The shadows on his face grew darker. "I have no right to ask anything of you, but if you allow it, I would spend a few short hours with you. We may speak or remain quiet. It will suffice me to see you once more before my eyes, not only in fading dreams."

I stared at him and saw the restlessness that had crept into him. I understood he was not sure of my response. He was afraid I would deny him my presence.

I extended my arm towards him over the table. He looked at me, as if for a confirmation, and a glow was lit in his eyes when he understood my meaning. He took my hand, and I pulled him off his seat, to my side. It had been dozens of years since I had last been this close to him. I squeezed his hand in my own. The heat radiating from it seemed to burn a hole in the night air.

"Aragorn, I have cherished every moment with you I have been given," I said. I breathed in his scent, and my chest was both light and heavy. "If I can add one more to my hoard, I will be grateful for it."

"You are too good to me," he whispered and lifted his hand on my face. His fingers stopped for a moment on my unwrinkled brow and travelled over my cheekbone before retreating. His voice was lowered to nearly inaudible. "I have missed you."

His touch still sent a fiery shiver under my skin. I placed my hand on his arm, looking for words, but that was when we heard steps outside. Aragorn withdrew from me and moved back to his own seat.

"Lord Legolas? We have brought food," said a voice from behind the door curtain.

"Very well, Anorloth," I shouted in response. "You may enter."

Anorloth stepped in with two other Elves. They laid on the table three trays laden with bread, wine, fruits, freshly roasted meat and sweet cakes.

"Thank you, Anorloth," I said. "You may go. It is not necessary to collect the trays until tomorrow," I added while they were still standing at the door. They bowed and took their leave.

Aragorn observed this exchange thoughtfully.

"It is odd to see you in the position of a lord," he said when they had left. "You are worthy of your title, but to me you are still a warrior."

"Time changes us all," I replied.

"All, but not everything," Aragorn said and his gaze lingered on me. It was still the same gaze as years before.

We ate in silence. After the meal he rose, walked behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

"I must leave at dawn," he said, and his breath brushed my ear.

"I know," I replied. "You have more important farewells to bid."

Aragorn kneeled by my seat, cupped my chin gently in his hand and turned my face towards him. His eyes were blazing brightly. For a moment the lines left by years seemed to be smoothened on his face and the silver shed from his hair, as if he were again in the prime of his strength, the heir of kings I had followed even to darkest paths without hesitation.

"Not more important. Only different," he said.

¨

¨

This early in the year nights were still chilly. We wrapped the blankets around ourselves fully clad; I knew the bite of the cold air was crueller to him than to me. We lay facing each other on the bed made of animal skins and soft fabrics. Aragorn's arm rested around me.

"Is Gimli going with you?" he asked.

"He is. No Dwarf has ever sailed to the West, but he says Lady Galadriel granted him this grace long ago."

"I should have thanked Gimli for being by your side," he said. "I fear I may not be able to do it anymore myself."

"I promise to convey your gratitude."

Aragorn put his hand on my cheek. The sombre and abysmal gulf that had always been between us opened in his eyes.

"Legolas, have you known happiness in these years?" he asked.

"I have not been unhappy. I have rejoiced for you, at the birth of your children and the flourishing of your kingdom," I answered truthfully.

"But what of yourself?"

My heart clenched into a fist in my chest. I made no reply.

"I never wished to cause you this pain," he said in a hoarse voice. "I have grieved for you."

"Grief is in vain," I replied. "It does not change a thing. You must not regret, for I do not."

"I have not regretted," he said, but the grief in him did not pass.

I studied carefully his expression, every flashing reflection of what was simmering inside him. "Now that your time has come, do you worry because we once violated the unwritten laws of Men and Elves? Do you fear an unknown verdict may await us somewhere under all-seeing eyes?"

Aragorn gave a faint chuckle, but there was no laughter in his voice.

"I do not expect that kind of cruelty from the Lords of the West. We have bought these long years upon earth with relinquishment; that is verdict enough for us. I only fear one thing: the final parting, beyond which there is no return." His eyes were grey as winter skies.

"That parting we have always foreseen. And you have one comfort. The choice of the Evenstar joined her with the kin of Men, and your children bear the same heritage. Beyond the circles of the world there is more for you than a memory, and while the destination is unknown, your separation will not be infinite."

"But for you there is only a memory," Aragorn said quietly.

"Memories are more vivid for my people than for Men. The roots of sadness lie buried deep in them, but a great deal of our happiness is born of them also," I said. "And who knows what final end is hidden in the Great Music? Some of the Wise believe in a world remade, where the shadow of death has been swept away, all children of Ilúvatar walk together in great bliss, and what has been divided will become one."

Aragorn took my face between his hands and pierced me with his gaze. I felt then like I saw him fully for the first time. A touch of his youth I had never known was blended with the strength of adulthood and wisdom brought by age, and he was more beautiful than ever. Surprise visited his face, as if he also saw at that moment my whole life in me -- the Elf child that had run under beeches in days of old, the young warrior yet oblivious of his fate, and finally the creature who had seen trees grow and fall, to whom most mortals were but children.

"I do not know of such tales," he said, "but if there is anything that may last beyond the realms of this world, it is the love I feel for you. You are a part of my spirit, and I am not whole without you. I may be selfish in saying this; but even if it meant a separation beyond the end of the world for us, I would make the same choice again."

I placed my own hands on his face, and suddenly it was again the same face as before: a landscape the paths of which my fingers knew how to walk in sleep and waking.

"As would I, beloved," I whispered, and meant it.

We lay like this for a long time, only looking at each other. One of the lanterns burning on the table extinguished, and a thin wisp of smoke floated into the air. The dusk closed around us like a silk moth's cocoon. No sound came from outside. Not a leaf stirred, no animal walked on winter-crusted grass and no Elf sang. The world beyond the room ceased to exist. There was naught but the scent of smoke, wine and fruits in the cooling air, the silence of the words that had been left unspoken during our long separation, the night oozing quietly all over us.

I moved my hands along Aragorn's body and his hands responded with caresses. They were not demanding caresses, they lacked despair and hurry. We had already renounced what could not be and received what was. Desire slumbered in us still, but we had sealed that door behind us over a century ago, and we had no need to speak to know there was no going back. Yet our spirits seemed to merge and do what our bodies refrained from. A shining, endless and unbreakable connection flowed between our palms, our fingertips, our hearts, surrounding us in an invisible circle of light.

Nothing more was needed. All was there.

"I would stay awake until dawn only to look at you," Aragorn said, "but I fear the years are too heavy upon me, and I will not be able to fight the sleep."

I stroked his hair. It mingled with mine on the bed, and only now I saw it still had dark streaks. My fingers knew its tangles, swirls and texture as if they had touched it only yesterday.

"Sleep," I said. "I will guard your dreams as I used to do."

The light of the still burning lantern spilled over us and painted an image of the past on the wall. The figures of the lovers we had once been, now faded featureless, were shifting in the shadows, melting together, until it was impossible to say where one ended and the other began.

"I would have abandoned all, had you asked for it," Aragorn whispered, and his voice failed.

"In that case I am glad I never did," I replied.

At that moment all sorrow and happiness of the world was written upon his face. I knew he saw the same on mine. I curled against him, fingers interlaced with his. Slowly sleep wrapped him in its cloak. Night knotted darkness for our cover and we breathed in each other for the last time, I through waking and he through dreams.

In the first light of the morning he readied himself to take leave. I walked him to the clearing where the road wound away among the trees still bare with winter. Sky and earth were silent. Nothing moved. We stood facing each other in the ring of mute trees, and there were no words.

For Men unexpected partings bring sorrow, but Elves think differently. For us, an unexpected parting is more merciful than one foreseen and inevitable. We have too often had to choose the words we know to be the last. We understand no words are sufficient in such a moment; a final farewell makes all of them flawed, any language coarse and clumsy.

Aragorn's companions appeared with the horses nearby at the edge of the clearing. He gave them a glance, made his decision and pulled me into his arms. He stopped to look at my face carefully, as if he had for the first time tried to memorise every feature, surprised at not having thought to do it before. Then he kissed me. It was a faint echo of another kiss, once shared in a different world, another time and place. His once fervent mouth was now soft and tender, hunger sated, all demands buried and faded away. My heart was beating in my chest as it only ever had for him, sore and joyous and sad.

When we finally pulled apart after a long embrace, I spoke his name once more, only once, to let myself taste it on my tongue, before it would be gone for ever, cold and thin and never more living.

"Aragorn..."

"Nothing has changed, Legolas."

I knew it was true.

I turned my back and walked away. After a few dozen steps I looked behind and saw him standing still in the same place, his hair silver-grey in the sloped morning light, hand placed upon his heart. I halted and lifted a hand upon my heart. When I felt tears stream down my cheeks, I turned away and did not look back again. I wished to be alone, until I would have to step out into a world without him.

When the Queen's messenger arrived weeks later to bring word of the King's death, I sat for a long time by the pond's calm water. Earth did not tremble, sky did not crack and thickets were not filled by the wailing of beasts. The surrounding woods were quiet and the trees did not tell where he had gone. No stalks broken under his footsteps lay on the paths, the air did not carry the rhythm of his breathing into my ears. The rock I was sitting on was empty by my side and felt cold against my hand. Evening folded around me, weaving a dark veil between me and the world.

Through it I heard Anduin flowing to the sea more swiftly than ever before, demanding me to join it.

Someone stepped to the rock beside me. A hand was lowered onto my shoulder.

"Is it time?" Gimli asked.

¨

¨

What is in the end, when all has been said and done?

There is slow-running water, and on its surface the faint song of rain falling from the iron-coloured sky. There is the quiet creak of the mast and the whispering of waves against the grey sides of the ship, as it floats towards the sea. There is the passing landscape that is being left behind and dissipating like mist after night.

There is that which cannot be changed.

Gimli is sitting in the midst of the ship, his shoulders hunched, combing his grizzled beard with his fingers. At intervals he raises his gaze and studies me carefully, as I am steering the light vessel. I see the determination to speak grow in him slowly, and finally he opens his mouth.

"I know it has only been a short while," he says. "But has it crossed your mind that putting your grief into words might make it easier to bear?" The movement of his fingers has stopped, the hood of his cloak has slipped off his head. Small bright crystals of drizzle are gathering on his coarse hair.

"Or it might sharpen the edge of pain even more cutting," I reply. A few dark birds take wing from the reeds. They dart and bounce restlessly like insects on the rain-slivered sky.

Gimli shakes his head and sighs.

"Even now the elven heart remains a mystery to me," he says. "You carry your memories like a curse. I myself would have been grateful through the years, if I could have revived in my mind that which is most beautiful."

His fingers brush a lovingly carved small mithril case he carries on a chain around his neck. One golden hair is set in it; I know two more remain in a crystal in the Glittering Caves, honoured as an heirloom of his house and token of friendship between Elves and Dwarves.

"I have forgotten too much of it, for Dwarves remember grudge and old malice longer than gentleness," he continues.

"And yet you were driven to this journey by the memory of unexpected gentleness you once encountered," I remind him. "Perhaps you understand the Elven-folk better than you know."

"Not only a faded memory, but a promise," Gimli responds, and his expression softens. He wipes water off his hair and pulls the hood over his head. "You know what Lady Galadriel offered me a long time ago. I could have stayed in the Golden Wood, yet I followed the Fellowship, with no consolation but her words I would see her again once more beyond the sea, if the Shadow passed."

"You are lucky, for the fulfilment of your wish is still ahead of you," I say. "The promises of the Lady are double-edged." I look into the horizon, where different hues of grey veil the border of the sky and sea. Somewhere behind them is brightness, but I do not see it, not yet.

Gimli pricks up his ears and fixes me with an examining gaze.

"It is odd you should use those very words," he states. "Aragorn said the exact same thing to me once."

Hearing Aragorn's name twists a knife inside me, but I do not let it show on my face.

"Is that so?"

"But he also said he would remain ever grateful for the day when the Lady first sent him to Mirkwood," Gimli continues without taking his eyes off me.

Surprise floods into me. I feel it invade my expression through the calm as I ask,

"Did Lady Galadriel send Aragorn to Mirkwood?"

Gimli's eyebrows rise and his mouth curves amusedly.

"I would not have thought I can still amaze you even in my old age," he replies. "I reckoned you had always known."

Laughter springs from me unexpectedly, taking us both by surprise.

"Now that is music to my weary ears, although I do not see the reason," Gimli says, perplexed.

"Dear friend, you have just added a missing piece to a puzzle I had thought long solved."

"Do not strain an old Dwarf with the riddles of Elves, but speak directly."

"I have a tale to tell, if you will listen," I say. "It has slumbered inside me too long. It may be time I leave it behind with these shores, like nearly everything else."

Gimli looks at me questioningly, spreading his hands in expectation.

"You have cherished your memory of Lothlórien beyond any other through the years," I begin. "So have I cherished mine, but for a different reason." Gimli remains quiet, but throws a meaningful glance at me. "You know Aragorn and I stepped into the Golden Wood as friends, but left it as lovers. Have you never wondered what caused the change?"

He strokes his beard and shrugs.

"I always thought it was because of Gandalf's fall in Moria and the grief that cast you into each other's arms. But I cannot say it was entirely unexpected," he replies. "Sometimes friendship and love are separated by but a subtle line."

Even now I marvel at his insight. Who would have thought that he, of all the Fellowship, would understand best?

"You were right," I admit. "But something else happened, too. I also was tried by the Lady as the Fellowship entered Lothlórien. When we were standing before her eyes, I heard her voice in my mind. 'Legolas son of Thranduil,' she said, 'it is no coincidence that you are on this journey. Your fate is bound to the Ringbearer, Elfstone and through them all of Middle-earth. Something will soon be requested of you that will not ease your part.'

"I did not lower my eyes, but responded to her, 'My Lady, if you see my heart the way I believe you do, you know I will protect them with my life. Is there something more you would ask of me?'

"I could hear the seriousness in her voice as she spoke. 'The request is not within my power to make, but will spring from what you and Isildur's heir have planted between the two of you long ago. Aragorn will come to you before you leave this country behind. What he offers you is both a gift and a burden, for allegiance of the heart between Elves and Men has seldom brought but pain to those who have bound themselves to it. And yet, how would Beren One-hand have passed his trials without Lúthien Tinúviel and Finrod Felagund by his side, and the Enemy's brow been deprived of the Silmaril? How would Mordor have been defeated on the Second Age, had not Gil-Galad and Elendil stood side by side, Elrond and Isildur as each other's protection? How would Eärendil have sailed to Valinor and the grace of the Valar been cast upon Elven-folk without a union of Elf and Man? Sometimes one must suffer a loss so others would gain. And perhaps a joy is hidden inside the sorrow, brief but all the brighter.'

"The Lady trailed off, and then continued, 'Whichever choice you make together, a relinquishment is bound to be the other side of it. You may travel by his side, but at the end of the path your roads must part. No one has the power to change that. It is no small thing you are being asked; the journey may still claim the lives of you both. A ring of grey mists is tightening around us, and the invisible power of the Shadow reaches unexpectedly far. You must grant or deny the request of your own will, and once the choice has been made, it cannot be undone. These words may hold but part of the truth, but I will still say them to you: receive for a fleeting while what you most desire, and your heart will ever be but a bruise in your chest; or save your heart, abandon the short bliss and watch the world fall.'

"I understood our trial was different from that of the rest of the Fellowship. The others she tempted with allurements that would seem to offer an escape from the dangers lying ahead; our allurement would be a weapon against those dangers, but would leave an eternal scar. And she was right. Aragorn came to me only two days later. The rest of the story you know," I finish my tale.

Gimli remains silent for a long while. Years have fallen upon his face, and his expression is contemplative. The ship rocks slowly beneath our feet and the greenness of early summer thickens on the shores of the stream. Eventually he breaks the silence, pondering each of his words carefully.

"Do you mean the Lady planned it all from the beginning and sent Aragorn to Mirkwood years before the war, because she knew what kind of a bond would be formed between you? Did she use you to secure Aragorn's survival?"

"I do not know, Gimli." I let out a deep sigh and close my eyes, letting the dull and heavy pain in my chest settle until it seems sufferable. "Perhaps she had foreseen something; perhaps not. I only know what I have seen to happen."

"The most beautiful is indeed the wisest also." Gimli straightens his crooked back and his eyes are bright. "I am no smith of shiny sentences, and I have no better comfort to offer you than what words you once said to me: I count you blessed, Legolas Greenleaf, for your loss you suffered of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise."

I recall how I had tried to lighten his grief for the wound of parting with Lady Galadriel, as we had left the Golden Wood.

"How wrong and inconsiderately chosen my own words seem now," I reply.

Gimli's gaze sharpens. He rises from his seat, steps to me and seizes my arm.

"No," he says firmly. "Those were wise and true words, and even more so for you than for me. You are lucky, for you have experienced such love as has not been granted to all. I hold your memories not a curse but blessing. Your story is made of them, and without that story you would not be you, but somebody else." He falls silent, then adds more quietly, "I would not want you to be somebody else."

His words move me. I kneel down on one knee, bringing our faces to the same level.

"Gimli, even without the Lady's promise I would have asked you to come with me, and not only to avoid journeying alone."

A smile spreads on his aged face.

"And I would have asked to go with you anyhow, and not only to see the Lady again."

"I know."

We look in the eye this friendship the years have forged persistent. A little clumsily he embraces me.

"Grief takes its time," Gimli says as he pulls away. "But we both still have eyes to see, a tongue to taste and a heart to dream, cry and laugh. I do not know what you intend to do with yours, but I plan to enjoy mine while I still can. Which is not long," he adds, but there is not despair or bitterness in his tone. It is a simple statement, a confirmation of what we both know to be true.

He wipes rain off his beard and stands still for a while, as if to say something more, but then seems to drop the thought and goes back to his seat. A companionable silence falls between us. I see his head begin to nod towards his chest, as tiredness takes him over.

"Gimli?"

He starts and his head quirks up.

"Did you say something?"

"Thank you."

He smiles and wraps the grey cloak around him more tightly.

"You are welcome," he replies. "Will you let an old Dwarf sleep now?"

"I will waken you when we reach the white shores," I say, and his grunt tells me he considers my estimation of his gift for sleep highly exaggerated.

We have come to the mouth of the river. The sea is near; the foam is resting on the waves thin as a moth's wing and pale against the deep blue of the water. The flight of white birds slashes the sky where clouds are rolling in an eternal, ceaseless transformation. The rain is withdrawing; shreds of sunlight are falling from among the clouds to the sea. I look at the shores I am leaving, and I feel I sense them fully for the first time. I see each sharp blade of grass, the edges and pores of each stone; I hear the growth of each tree and the peaceful stirrings of their roots in the darkness of the ground. I absorb the beauty of it all with hunger and longing, knowing it will pass and never return.

When Anduin opens into the sea and wind claims the sails, I let my mind float back to Eryn Lasgalen, where the last of my people still walk under the stars, hidden from the world of Men. I linger for a moment in the cold-grown halls of Imladris and roam among the trees of Lothlórien, where no one else wanders anymore, the abandoned huts built on boughs crumble under moss and winter has muted the earth. That is when the memory returns, and this time I do not yield, but open myself to it. Lanterns are lit in the dusk and a quiet song drifts from among the trees, the grass is green again and leaves are rustling in the current of air. Aragorn's warm skin is glowing against my own, we are entwining like vines and living breathlessly the miracle we are together. There are words that belong only to the two of us and that nobody else will ever hear.

"If there is still life somewhere beyond the Shadow, will you take this love with you to the Undying Lands? Will you keep this moment alive in your memory, when I am gone and all others have forgotten?"

I will, beloved. This and every other moment I have been granted to live: the dance of light on forest floor, the web of shadows on stone walls, leaves of gold whispering in the wind just before they fade away.

For the only meaning is written in this very moment, and small is the value of eternal life without this understanding.

A wind rises and sweeps over the water, shaking the surface of the waves. Although the world is different from the one I was once born into, some things will never change: those that songs are made and stories written of, those that are remembered in the solitude of deep dark night hours, those that leave a mark that will never heal entirely away from the red flesh of the heart. They will remain as long as the empty, yet full sky arches above the earth.

And I am grateful for them.

I leave behind Middle-earth as I have known it.

I let it go.

¨

¨

** The End **

¨

¨

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Notes:

_Eryn__ Lasgalen_: the name given to Mirkwood by Celeborn and Thranduil after the War of the Ring. It translates as 'the Wood of Greenleaves'. (_LotR_, Appendix B: '_The Tale of Years_')

_Nínui_: the Sindarin name for the second month of the year, or February.

_Thranduilion_: Sindarin for 'son of Thranduil'. In his formal greeting Legolas replies to Aragorn accordingly, addressing him as _Arathornion_, son of Arathorn.

_Lords of the West_: the Valar, angelic spirits that look over the world and serve Ilúvatar.

_And who knows what final end is hidden in the Great Music?:_

'The Great Music' refers to the creation myth of the Elves, which tells of Ilúvatar creating music that patterns the fate of Middle-earth in its entirety.

_Some of the Wise believe in a world remade, where the shadow of death has been swept away, all children of Ilúvatar walk together in great bliss, and what has been divided will become one:_

This notion, while vague, still has its roots in canon. 'Laws and Customs among the Eldar' and 'Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth' (both in _Morgoth's__ Ring_, HoMe vol. 10) hint at the idea of a pure and 'healed' world beyond the end of Arda as Elves and Men know it, where death may not separate them anymore - a kind of paradise regained, to use a Judeo-Christian analogy.

_And yet, how would Beren One-hand have passed his trials without Lúthien Tinúviel and Finrod Felagund by his side, and the Enemy's brow been deprived of the Silmaril? How would Mordor have been defeated on the Second Age, had not Gil-Galad and Elendil stood side by side, Elrond and Isildur as each other's protection? How would Eärendil have sailed to Valinor and the grace of the Valar been cast upon Elven-folk without a union of Elf and Man?:_

These events are hinted at in _LotR_, but the actual tales are told in _The Silmarillion_.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨


End file.
